It is critically important for the founders of a company to intimately understand the company’s key performance indicators (KPIs). Founders cannot hope to grow a company in any meaningful way without an almost obsessive focus on its KPIs.<p>Why? Because KPIs, if constructed correctly, give management …

<i>This story was delivered to BI Intelligence "Fintech Briefing" subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here.</i><p>Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), a US government organization, warned that blockchain technology and marketplace lending could present risks to financial stability …

You’ve probably heard about “the blockchain” recently. A lot. The technology underpinning bitcoin has attracted billions in venture capital funding, the interest of almost every global bank, and the attention of governments around the world. Essentially a digital distributed ledger that anyone on …

Dananjaya Hettiarachchi certainly knows how to deliver a great speech. The 2014 Toastmaters International word champion of public speaking reveals three keys to delivering the most effective speech.<p><i>Produced by Justin Gmoser and Richard Feloni</i><p><b>Follow BI Video</b>: On Twitter

Follow these useful strategies for conquering stage fright.<p><i>This story first appeared on the Muse, a Web destination with exciting job opportunities and expert career advice.</i><p>Whether you're delivering presentations in front of colleagues, teaching industry workshops, or stepping onstage at a local or …

The University of Illinois' College of Engineering plans to launch a new degree program that will let students pursue ideas that could develop into companies.<p>The Innovation, Leadership and Engineering Entrepreneurship program will be project-based and build on classes and programming already …

The technology most likely to change the next decade of business is not the social web, big data, the cloud, robotics, or even artificial intelligence. It’s the blockchain, the technology behind digital currencies like Bitcoin.<p>Blockchain technology is complex, but the idea is simple. At its most …

Immigrant entrepreneurs embody the essence of the American Dream—the idea that it’s possible for anyone to succeed, regardless of where they come from. Yet for the majority of immigrant entrepreneurs, it’s difficult to get a visa, obtain funding, and enter the elite networks that make successful …

The Sunday Times reported this week that Barclays is planning to let charities accept bitcoin later this year, leveraging its partnership with bitcoin exchange Safello that was announced earlier this year. (Barclays has since denied this, saying it's simply working on a "proof of concept.")<p>I sat …

The wild valuation swings of Bitcoin are something of a sideshow when compared with the potential of the underlying blockchain engine. Focusing on the utility of this distributed, consensus-based technology is exactly what London-based startup Everledger is doing.<p>The very early stage startup — …

Imogen Heap is fed up with hearing artists, herself included, complain about the current state of the music industry. And when the composer, performer, technologist, inventor, and the only female artist to have ever won the Grammy for engineering decides to take action, things happen.<p>Ms. Heap is a …

Want to know what’s in Google’s secret sauce? Chief social evangelist Gopi Kallayil dishes out the tech giant’s success recipe.<p>Ever wonder what makes the Google the holy grail of productivity and creativity? There’s no magic in the drinking water at the Mountain View, CA company. The tech giant …

IBM CIO Jeff Smith says that running a global IT group of 20,000 people raises certain challenges of operating at scale. He found that the solution logically led to local decision making by small, self-directed teams. “The challenge in a big company like this is that I have to abstract myself a bit …

Most of us will never be in an Andreessen Horowitz meeting, and even fewer of us will get a chance to work with the famed VC firm. But today, we’re all equals when it comes to getting a peek at the 16 tech trends that a16z, as it’s known, is most excited about right now.<p>In a post this morning, …